To-Do List: Defending Obamacare; Magic Buys the Dodgers

To know: Newt Gingrich fired his campaign manager, is dropping one-third of his paid full-time staff, and is curtailing his schedule—all part of a new strategy aimed at contesting the nomination during the Republican Convention later this year … The Supreme Court is holding a third and final day of oral arguments about Obamacare today … The Los Angeles Dodgers will be sold to a new ownership group that includes Magic Johnson … The Park Slope Food Co-op rejected a plan to hold a referendum on a boycott of products from Israel.

To read: On GQ’s Web site, Reid Cherlin, a former White House spokesman on health care, defends Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, Jr., who came under heavy fire for his performance before the Supreme Court yesterday:

Having spent a year of my life getting paid to defend the ACA as the White House spokesman on health care, I feel for the guy. Health care reform is very much worth defending, but going about that defense is where things get, well, difficult.

It would have been easy for Verrilli—or any of us—to explain single-payer health care. “Look,” we could have said, “the government is paying for everyone to have coverage.” End of story. But single-payer is not what our brilliant, world-leading political system gave us. What it gave us is essentially a halfsy—an extraordinarily confusing patchwork in which some novel legislative mechanisms are used to induce individuals, businesses, insurance companies, and states into doing things that add up to concrete good.

Why did it go down that way? In part because lawmakers are essentially shortsighted, self-serving, and scared of their own shadow. But there’s a bigger problem: health care as a system is incredibly complicated, and also incredibly scary and off-putting for voters to think about—which is the reason most people never want to talk about it or learn about it in the first place.

Don’t believe me? Then answer me this: what’s your plan’s deductible for a hospital visit? You don’t know, of course, even though that’s critical information. Let’s try an easier one: what do you pay per month for health coverage? Most people don’t know that, either. All of which makes it extraordinarily hard to communicate about the ACA persuasively or effectively.

For the New York Times Magazine, Matt Bai investigates last year’s negotiations for a debt deal, and how they broke down:

Over the last several months, I spoke with dozens of people who were involved in or were kept apprised of events that week, some of whom made available private documents from that time, including the various offers and counteroffers. I conducted most of these interviews on the condition that I would neither reveal nor quote the people who spoke to me, so that they would feel free to speak candidly.

What emerged from these conversations is a clearer and often surprising picture of exactly how close Obama and Boehner came to finalizing a historic agreement, what exactly was in it and why it ultimately fell apart — including a revelation that illuminates Boehner’s thinking in those final hours and directly contradicts a core element of the version he has told, even to some in his own leadership.

The truth here matters for more than its historical value. At the end of this year, no matter how the presidential election turns out, the two parties will face yet another Armageddon moment in the fight over debt and spending; this time, if they don’t settle on a plan to rein in the nation’s nearly $16 trillion debt, then a series of onerous budget cuts—worth about $1.2 trillion over 10 years, divided between defense and other programs—will automatically go into effect. If we understand what really went on last July, then we’ll have a better sense of how difficult it will be for the two parties to stave off the coming political calamity and why, too, the situation may not be quite as hopeless as it seems.

To watch: In a video tweeted out by President Obama’s official account, an M.I.T. economist explains the Affordable Care Act:

Alex Koppelman was a politics editor for newyorker.com from from 2011 to 2013.